


Hoodies, Ice Cream and Break-up Songs

by godsmenu



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26961766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godsmenu/pseuds/godsmenu
Summary: The thing about loving someone unconditionally is, when they stop loving you, you will still be stuck there, picking up the pieces of your own heart off the pavement and wondering what went wrong. Seungmin finds this out the hard way.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	Hoodies, Ice Cream and Break-up Songs

**Author's Note:**

> seungjin breakup fic????? seungjin breakup fic!!!! i cannot explain what brought this on but i was just thinking about how seungmin would probably take being dumped harder than anybody on planet earth and this fic was born.
> 
> alternate description: manic pixie dream boy hyunjin dumps seungmin and jilix try (and fail) to help 
> 
> i hope you guys like it :)

The thing about loving someone unconditionally is, when they stop loving you, you will still be stuck there, picking up the pieces of your own heart off the pavement and wondering what went wrong. Seungmin finds this out the hard way. 

Seungmin never did anything half-way. His parents wanted him to be an engineer, so he studied until he had a 4.0 GPA and a scholarship to college. He loved baseball, so he played hard until he led his high school team to a championship. He’d planned to do the same in college, if not for his wonky elbow. He liked to write, so he brainstormed and edited and re-wrote until he’d successfully gotten one of his works published in a literary magazine. Everything Seungmin did, he committed himself fully to it until he had something to show for it. His relationship with Hyunjin wasn’t any different. 

They’d met in the most typical Seungmin of ways: at a baseball game. Seungmin had been playing; Hyunjin had been taking pictures for the school newspaper. Hyunjin had gotten Seungmin’s attention to ask him to look at the camera for a shot, and Seungmin fell for him like _that_. One look at his soft smile and gentle eyes was enough for Seungmin. 

In Seungmin’s personal opinion, everything was perfect. Hyunjin was spontaneous and rebellious in a way Seungmin probably never would be. Seungmin was rational and organized in a way Hyunjin had never wanted to be. They balanced each other out. Seungmin’s love of people and Hyunjin’s tendency to isolate worked against each other, resulting in a handful of nights where they’d go out to see _all_ of Seungmin’s friends and a whole lot of nights where they’d snuggle into Hyunjin’s couch and binge dramas in their entirety. 

Seungmin really did think they belonged together. No matter how many times Hyunjin showed up late or forgot an anniversary, Seungmin couldn’t even get mad at him. Hyunjin simply made him too happy all the rest of the time for him to care. 

More than anything, what Seungmin liked about Hyunjin was that he made Seungmin want to write. It wasn’t long after they’d started dating that Seungmin found out he needed surgery on his pitching elbow, effectively ending his baseball career. Seungmin had been, predictably, devastated. He liked a lot of things, but he’d put baseball first, always. Hyunjin was supportive, even though he didn’t understand baseball or why Seungmin was so upset. Then, their two month anniversary had rolled around, and Seungmin had decided to, for the first time in a long time, write a poem. 

Hyunjin was the easiest person in the world to write to because he was sentimental and romantic and got excited over every word. After seeing his reaction to the first poem, Seungmin had immediately wanted to write him another. He wrote to him over and over, and soon, he was back to writing short stories again. Hyunjin would always joke that it was unfair that Seungmin was good with both numbers and words. 

To Seungmin, there was only one knick in their entire relationship: their plans after college graduation in the coming spring. Seungmin wanted to find a job in his field and really commit to it, just like he did everything else. Hyunjin wanted to explore, to go all around the country looking for inspiration for his photography. For Hyunjin, staying in one place wasn’t an option. For Seungmin, it was the only one he’d ever really considered. Still, Seungmin didn’t let it get to him too much. How could he? He was happy, and he thought Hyunjin would come around eventually. 

Everything had come crashing down only days earlier. Hyunjin called Seungmin out of the blue, and when Seungmin had arrived at his apartment, Hyunjin had almost immediately gotten straight to the point of breaking Seungmin’s heart.

_This isn’t working._

Seungmin had replayed Hyunjin’s words in his head a million times. What wasn’t working? How? It was nonsensical. Nothing was wrong. Why would Hyunjin end it like that? There was no fight. There was no lead up. Hyunjin just decided he was done and that was it. 

Maybe Seungmin should have seen that coming. Hyunjin couldn’t commit to anything. He’d bleach his hair until it was white then decide he didn’t like it and dye it black. He’d grow it down to his shoulders, then he would cut it all off. He’d spend hours setting up shoots and tear it all down without taking any pictures. He’d buy new clothes, wear them twice and never again. He cycled through friends and interests and possessions constantly. Why would Seungmin be any different? 

This all leaves Seungmin curled up on the couch in the tiny house he rented out with his two best friends, Felix and Jisung. Tonight, he had already been through half a pint of peppermint ice cream, and he had no intentions of stopping. It had already been a few days since The Dumping (as Jisung, ever so delicately, referred to it), but Seungmin had yet to feel even a minuscule bit better. 

To say Felix and Jisung had different takes on the situation would be an understatement. Felix was a pool of sympathy and kindness, offering Seungmin hugs and favors and a listening ear. Jisung was more or less sick of the cry fest in his living room and had _thrice_ suggested arson might be a good way to deal with the matter at hand. 

“Here’s my suggestion,” Jisung says, leaning forward like he has some sort of grand idea that will relieve Seungmin of his rampant depressive episode. “Just get over him.”

Felix pushes him to scold his insensitivity, but it’s too late. Seungmin has already gone in for another scoop of ice cream. 

“I’m serious!” Jisung snaps. “Why are we sitting here being sad over some _guy_? Because he has nice hair and said cheesy bullshit to reel you in? We’re better than this!”

“ _We_?” Seungmin repeats back, astonished by Jisung’s ability to make every single thing they went through in their lives a group activity. Seungmin had gotten dumped, and Jisung wanted to give a speech about how _he_ was over Seungmin’s former boyfriend already. 

“I mean, yeah, I feel like I’ve heard so much about this relationship I might as well have been in it,” Jisung explains. 

“ _Han_ ,” Felix practically hisses. Seungmin was thankful for Felix, even if Jisung would probably never let him just grieve his relationship in peace. 

“Listen,” Jisung says sternly, “I couldn’t say this whenever you thought Hyunjin was like your soulmate or whatever, but he’s honestly not that great. I mean, yeah, he’s nice to look at, but what else is there to him?”

“How hardworking and affectionate he is. How confident I felt when we were together. How he always has something nice to say about _everybody_. His sense of humor. The way he actually read all the books and listened to all the music I recommended. How excited he got to show me pictures he took—”

“Okay, you’re whipped. I get it,” Jisung complains with an eyeroll. He reaches over and confiscates Seungmin’s spoon to prevent him from eating anymore ice cream. “Seungmin, there are a million other boys who are all those things on this planet.”

“And none of them are him,” Seungmin replies miserably. He collapses back onto the couch, ready for the earth to open up and swallow him whole. Felix glares at Jisung. 

“Okay, different approach,” Jisung announces, clearly taking the hint that he’d only made the situation worse. “Let’s talk about things about Hyunjin that we _don’t_ like. I’ll start. He’s really bad at video games. Having him on your team is like a death sentence.”

“He tries his best, though,” Seungmin insists. 

“If you don’t have anything mean to say, don’t say anything at all!” Jisung orders. Seungmin sighs. 

“You’re right. Even at Mario Party, it sucks playing teams with him,” Seungmin admits. “We always lose.”

“Oh, I’ve got one!” Felix squeaks, face lighting up at the opportunity to potentially cheer Seungmin up. “Your parents hate him. You always dreaded holidays. Now, you can go home for Christmas in peace.”

“I guess that’s true,” Seungmin agrees. “He and my mom don’t get along. He always says she asks him too many invasive questions.”

“Invasive how?” Felix asks, furrowing his eyebrows. In truth, Seungmin’s mom wasn’t the easiest person to get along with; she was even more type A and bossy than Seungmin was. Growing up, the only thing they were allowed to do at sleepovers at Seungmin’s house was read or watch educational movies. 

“You know my mom,” Seungmin sighs. “She wants to know his plans, and he doesn’t have any. We had dinner with her and my dad last week, and Hyunjin _flipped_ when she started asking him about graduation again. My mom was so upset. She called me afterward and apologized, like, a hundred times.” 

“Fuck him,” Jisung says, crossing his arms, “and while I’m at it: fuck his friends.”

“What’s wrong with his friends?” Seungmin asks, furrowing his eyebrows. 

“Where do I even start?” Jisung exclaims. “Jeongin, for one. He’s a brat. Do you know how many times he’s rolled his eyes at me?”

“You say a lot of eye-roll-worthy stuff,” Seungmin reminds him. Jisung scoffs. 

“Whatever! I don’t like him!” 

“Oh!” Felix exclaims, more negativity popping into his head. “He steals your clothes. I’ve seen him wear the hoodie I got you when I was in Sydney more times than I’ve seen _you_ wear it.”

“He didn’t give that back,” Seungmin realizes, his voice suddenly filled with sadness. He was sure Hyunjin had a lot of his things. He wondered if Hyunjin _wanted_ to keep them or he just couldn’t be bothered to meet with Seungmin to return them. Would his hoodie end up in a landfill now that Hyunjin didn’t care about him anymore?

“O-oh,” Felix stammers. Jisung notices the panic appear on his face immediately. “It’s okay! I can just ask my mom to send you another one. The shop where I bought it is right by our house.” 

Seungmin almost agrees reluctantly, but he hesitates for a moment. Why would he just accept that everything he ever let Hyunjin borrow was gone forever now? Hyunjin broke his heart, and he gets to keep his stuff, too. It made Seungmin’s blood boil. This whole time, Seungmin had been sad, regretful. Now? Now, he was angry. Seungmin had given Hyunjin _three years_ of his life, and Hyunjin couldn’t even give him a proper explanation as to why they were over. He couldn’t even give Seungmin back his hoodie. 

“He doesn’t get to just keep my hoodie. _You_ got that for me,” Seungmin decides, pressing the lid back onto his ice cream container. Felix’s eyes widened. Seungmin hadn’t closed a container of ice cream without finishing it since The Dumping. 

“I’ll call Jeongin!” Felix offers. Seungmin ignores the comment altogether, instead pulling himself to his feet and heading toward the kitchen. “Seungmin!” 

Felix trails after Seungmin, who puts his ice cream away before grabbing his keys from the ceramic bowl on top of their fridge. How was Felix supposed to get him to stop? 

“What are you doing?” Felix asks, placing one hand on the fridge and the other on the counter to block Seungmin’s exit from the room. 

“Going on a drive,” Seungmin replies simply. Jisung approaches from behind Felix, a grin stretching across his face when he realizes what Seungmin is trying to do. “Let me through, please.”

“No,” Felix denies sternly. “I’m not gonna let you go over there. It’ll just make things worse.”

“I just want to talk to him,” Seungmin swears, holding up a hand like he’s taking an oath. “Besides, does it really get worse than _this_?”

Seungmin gestures to the three empty ice cream pints stacked inside each other on their counter. Felix cringes. Seungmin had always been a comfort eater. 

“I think we should let him go,” Jisung announces. Felix retracts his elbow and plants it firmly between Jisung’s ribs. “OW!”

“Can you stop working against me?” Felix snaps. Jisung just rolls his eyes. 

“Think about it, Lix. Have you ever known Seungmin to accept something he doesn’t understand?” Jisung explains. Seungmin hisses at Jisung for talking about him like he’s not even there. He was sick of his friends thinking they had any sort of say in any of this. 

“I guess that’s true,” Felix admits, “and he’ll go eventually whether we like it or not.”

“Exactly,” Jisung agrees. 

“Please move,” Seungmin requests. His patience was dwindling by the second. “I love you guys, but this isn’t your call.”

Felix steps out of the way, but one look into his eyes lets Seungmin know he thinks this is a bad idea. Truthfully, even the logical part of Seungmin’s brain thought this was a bad idea. The impulsive part, though, that had fallen in love with Hyunjin the day they met and had clung to him ever since, wanted answers. 

“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” Seungmin announces, then walks right past both Jisung and Felix and exits out of the front door of their house. 

He gets into his car and the first thing his brain prompts him to do is _drive_. He could drive and drive until he didn’t recognize where he was anymore. Maybe that was the only way he was gonna get over this. Right now, everywhere he went he thought of memories with Hyunjin, and those just made him feel infinitely worse. 

After he shakes his idea of ghosting the world, he actually turns his car on and sets course for Hyunjin’s apartment. He was a man on a mission, and he was going to get that hoodie back tonight. 

When he arrives, he parks his car and heads straight up the stairs to the second floor apartment Hyunjin shared with Jisung’s favorite person, Yang Jeongin. Jeongin was a year younger than them, but he held his own with everybody else and had a venomous tongue when he needed it. Jisung never liked that, when someone could keep up with him. He had long relied on being the fastest, wittiest person in the room, and Jeongin didn’t always fall for it. 

“Hyunjin! Hyunjin, I know you’re in there,” Seungmin squawks, banging on Hyunjin’s apartment door. “I need to talk to you!”

Seungmin waits all of ten seconds before continuing to knock and knock and knock. 

Eventually, Seungmin hears the lock turn. His face falls when he sees it’s just Jeongin. 

“Where’s Hyunjin?” Seungmin asks. 

“Now’s not a great time, Seungmin–”

“I need to talk to him right now,” Seungmin insists. “He owes me that.”

Jeongin sighs, pulling open the door enough to allow Seungmin entry. 

It was weird to feel unwelcome in a place that felt like home so recently. Jeongin and Hyunjin’s apartment door opened right up into the living room where Seungmin had spent what felt like hundreds of nights hanging out with Hyunjin. He knew this apartment as well as he did his own house, and now, he felt like a stranger in it. 

“He’s in his room,” Jeongin offers blankly. 

Seungmin turns and walks down the short hallway that led to Hyunjin’s room. He knocks twice on the door. 

“It’s me. Jeongin let me in,” Seungmin announces. 

When the door opens, Seungmin is shocked to see Hyunjin looks completely normal. He wasn’t disheveled. He wasn’t puffy-eyed. He wasn’t three pints deep into an ice cream binge. He looked just how he did any other night when Seungmin had come over out of the blue. 

“Seungmin, hi,” Hyunjin says softly, slowly backing up to let Seungmin know it was okay if he came inside. Seungmin does so, and he only becomes more frustrated by Hyunjin’s room being _clean_. He was taking this all well enough to clean his room? He wasn’t binge eating. He wasn’t rotting in his bed. He was doing fine, and he was _cleaning_ on top of that. 

“Where’s my Sydney hoodie?” Seungmin asks suddenly. Hyunjin scrunches up his face in confusion. “It’s grey and says ‘SYDNEY’ on it in maroon. Felix bought it for me when he was in Australia. I let you borrow it when we were together because you liked it and looked cute in it, but I want it back.” but 

“Okay,” Hyunjin says quietly. He walks over to his desk and grabs a piece of clothing thrown over his chair, which Seungmin quickly realizes is his hoodie. Had Hyunjin really been wearing it so recently? He hands it over to Seungmin, and Seungmin just clenches his jaw trying to decide what to say. “That’s why you rushed over here? You could’ve sent me a text, Seungmin. I would’ve dropped it off for you.”

“I- That’s not all,” Seungmin insists. “I want back my umbrella.”

Hyunjin just blinks at him for a moment, then seemingly decides to just accept Seungmin’s meltdown. He walks over to his closet and finds the yellow umbrella Seungmin gave to him. It makes Seungmin upset to see how he could just let it go. They’d had their first kiss outside Hyunjin’s dorm freshman year while Seungmin was holding this umbrella. It’d only come into Hyunjin’s possession when it had started raining a few weeks later while they were on a date. Hyunjin was umbrella-less, as always, so Seungmin offered up his own as they left. Hyunjin still always forgot it, but he wouldn’t return it to Seungmin anyway. He liked the story. 

“Anything else?” Hyunjin snaps, clearly losing his patience with the situation already. Seungmin notices. And he decides to do something he’s never done before: he keeps pushing. 

“My calculator. I gave it to you when you took stats,” Seungmin replies.

Hyunjin fetches it from his desk drawer. 

“My scarf, the red one you insisted I give you because it was too cold,” Seungmin lists. 

Again, Hyunjin finds it in his closet and hands it over. 

The requests start to add up. Seungmin reaches into the back of his mind to think of things he’s given Hyunjin that both of them forgot belonged to Seungmin in the first place. He gets as petty to ask for his old highlighters back. Hyunjin clenches his teeth through the entire thing. Seungmin is running out of things to ask for, but he couldn’t stop, not before Hyunjin cracked. So, he goes low. He goes lower than he thought he ever could, especially with Hyunjin. 

“I want the necklace,” Seungmin says finally. Hyunjin pauses. He knew exactly what Seungmin meant. For their first anniversary, Seungmin gave him a tiny necklace with a charm on it that had their names engraved into the metal. Hyunjin had worn it virtually everyday since. To him, there wasn’t any reason to take it off; it was cute and subtle and represented how in love with Seungmin he was. 

“No,” Hyunjin replies simply. Seungmin narrows his eyes. Finally, he’d gotten to Hyunjin. 

“Give it to me, Hyunjin. I bought it. It’s mine,” Seungmin insists. Hyunjin shakes his head. 

“You’ve lost your mind,” he accuses. 

“No, I haven’t, and I want the necklace back,” Seungmin orders. Hyunjin pauses for a long time, seemingly consumed by thought. 

“If I give it to you, will you just leave?” Hyunjin asks. Seungmin nods, mostly because he’d run out of things to force Hyunjin to return. 

Hyunjin reaches into his shirt and pulls the necklace out of his collar. Seungmin feels his entire throat and mouth go completely dry. He was still wearing it. _He was still wearing it_. 

“You didn’t take it off,” Seungmin points out. Hyunjin shakes his head. “Why not?”

“Because,” Hyunjin grumbles, “believe it or not, it takes me more than three days to get over someone I have invested three years of my life into.”

“ _You_ dumped _me_ ,” Seungmin reminds him. “ _You_ broke _my_ heart.”

“I did what was best for both of us,” Hyunjin snaps. “This was never going to work out in the real world.”

“Why not? You are the _only_ person I have ever seen myself with,” Seungmin barks back. “For me, it’s you. That’s it.”

“But you don’t consider our actual compatibility at all,” Hyunjin explains. “Being your boyfriend is too much pressure, Seungmin.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Seungmin asks. 

“You have a fucking wedding Pinterest board, and every time I see your parents they interrogate me for twenty minutes about what I’m gonna do with my life. You are good at _everything_ , and you have this whole life ahead of you. I’m not like that. I don’t know how to be like that,” Hyunjin rants exasperatedly. Seungmin could tell he’d said all this before, probably to Jeongin. Still, Seungmin could practically see Hyunjin’s jaw relax as he finally got to say what was on his mind right to Seungmin’s face. “You know what my life plans look like right now? I want to go out into the wilderness and spend, like, a year lost out there, taking pictures. You need someone with a five year plan who’s ready to prematurely pick out baby names, not somebody who wants to fucking recreate _Into the Wild_.”

“I would gladly recreate _Into the Wild_ with you, Hyunjin,” Seungmin confesses quietly. “I like planning. I like knowing what the future has in store. I like knowing where we’re going. But I like you more than all of that combined.” 

“Really?” Hyunjin whispers. Seungmin nods. 

“Really,” he affirms. “Let’s spend the whole summer after we graduate driving around, stopping in small towns and talking to people we don’t know and taking pictures and writing about it, like you wanted to.” 

“Your mom would be so mad,” Hyunjin points out. Seungmin shrugs. It was true. His mom had never been Hyunjin’s biggest fan. She saw photography as a hobby, not a career.

“She’d be furious,” he admits. 

“And you still want to do it?” 

Seungmin nods. 

“It’s just one summer. She’d get over it. This is _my_ life. I want you in it,” Seungmin explains. Hyunjin sighs, taking the charm on his necklace into his hand. 

“But what about when summer ends?” Hyunjin asks, squeezing the necklace tight between his fingers. Seungmin just furrows his eyebrows. Hyunjin wasn’t a planner. He didn’t ask questions about the future. He didn’t care; he lived in the right now. 

“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out,” Seungmin concludes with a shrug. He drops all the things he’s holding into a pile on Hyunjin’s floor and instead cups one of Hyunjin’s cheeks with his hand. 

“No. That’s not good enough,” Hyunjin determines, pushing his hand away, “because I know that when you say that you mean that _I’ll_ change my mind.” 

“I mean, c’mon, Hyunjin,” Seungmin says with a sigh. “You can work on your photography from anywhere.”

“There it is,” Hyunjin sings. He can’t help but laugh. Seungmin didn’t understand what was so funny. “I knew you would say that.”

“It makes the most sense for us–”

“Why am I the one who has to compromise?” Hyunjin practically whimpers. “Have you ever once considered a way _you_ could come with me? You always just want _me_ to get over myself. Always.”

“I never said that–”

“You didn’t have to,” Hyunjin states. “Just like how you didn’t have to say you were on your mom’s side the other day. I could tell because you didn’t defend me.” 

“It’s not like that–”

“It felt like that,” Hyunjin says, cutting him off, “and it made me realize that, no matter how in love I am with the version of you who loves to write and will drive me half an hour to take photos at a random location I heard about, you are always gonna be the guy who wants a white picket fence and a nine-to-five. I can’t give you that.”

“Why not?” Seungmin whispers, trying to take Hyunjin’s fingers between his own. Hyunjin pulls his hands away. 

“Because I don’t want to,” Hyunjin says simply. “We have entire lives ahead of us, Seungmin, and maybe someday I will want to be in one place with a stable job and routine but not now.” 

Seungmin paused. He couldn’t really argue with that. What was he gonna say? _Re-think that. Maybe if you dig deep you’ll love me enough._

“So this is really it then?” Seungmin realizes finally. There wasn’t anything he could say or do to change the fact he needed to stay here after they graduated and Hyunjin needed to go _anywhere else_. 

“I guess so,” Hyunjin admits. 

Seungmin just takes a deep breath, then grabs his hoodie off the floor and starts to exit the room. He didn’t want the umbrella. He didn’t want the calculator. Truthfully, he didn’t even want the hoodie, he just didn’t want Felix to freak and force his mom to buy a second one. 

“You know,” Hyunjin announces suddenly, “I really think the Seungmin who loves to write and never has any inspiration, who you ignore because your parents would be unhappy with him, would love to go with me.”

“Yeah,” Seungmin says quietly, “he would.”

There’s another pause. Seungmin was out of words. Hyunjin had a lot he still wanted to say.

“Do you want this?” Hyunjin asks, attempting to unhook his necklace. Seungmin just shakes his head. 

“You can pretend the other Seungmin gave it to you,” Seungmin suggests before leaving the room entirely. 

Seungmin storms out of the apartment, not even acknowledging Jeongin’s attempt to say goodbye to him. Once he’s back in his car, all he can do is press his forehead against the steering wheel and wonder what the hell he was thinking coming over here in the first place. Felix was right; he’d only made things worse. 

After he turns on his car, he immediately gives in to his initial instinct. He just starts to drive. He’s four exits past his house before it even dawns on him that he’s not going home. For Seungmin, this kind of thing wasn’t normal. He never did anything without telling Felix and Jisung first. Still, he continued to drive. He needed the time to think. He needed the time to himself. 

Around twenty minutes into his aimless journey, Seungmin starts to think about what it really meant to love someone _unconditionally_. Did he ever really even do that? If he cared that much about Hyunjin, wouldn’t he have done whatever it took to keep him? Why was he so opposed to doing something with his life besides the exact plan his mom laid out for him? 

A part of him wants to call Hyunjin, to apologize and tell him that _he’d_ be the one to compromise this time. The rest of him is still listening to his mom, still hearing Jisung say that there are a million guys out there just like Hyunjin. Why did it hurt so bad then?

Seungmin just drives and drives.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!!
> 
> p.s. i made a skz twitter and idk how to make friends... LOL follow me if u want to!!! i'm @daengsnyang <3


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